Abstract
Mandisa is a popular CCM artist but her two most recent songs are poor influences. They encourage listeners to focus on their own abilities and to seek power to overcome difficulties inside themselves, rather than trusting in God for help. The songs make inappropriate guarantees of end to difficulty, and relegate God's role in our suffering to the sidelines, as someone cheering us on rather than leading us through it. For these reasons, I discourage everyone from listening to or promoting those two particular songs. Their melodies are no substitute for their lacking content.Analysis
I don’t know this particular
artist, I can only judge the subject matter of the songs that are aired
constantly on my local Christian radio stations. Their frequency implies that
they are very popular, and so I think it’s important for there to be an
analysis of them on the Internet somewhere. I’ll do my best to give them a fair
treatment here.
The songs are not blatantly
anti-Christian, and in fact have a few references to Biblical doctrines (the
latter more so than the former), but these would be easily missed by the
Biblically illiterate main stream christian crowd, and especially any
nonbelievers who might be listening in. The songs unfortunately fall into the
category of CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) that can be summed up as
“self-help encouragement.” The problem is not that it attempts to make people
feel good, but that the emphasis is far too often on some alleged inherent
capacity in the individual to “be great,” rather than on relying on God for
blessings.
Now I’ll look at a sampling of
the lyrics. Here is the chorus from “Stronger”:
When the waves are taking
you under
Hold on just a little bit
longer
He knows that this is gonna
make you stronger, stronger
The pain ain’t gonna last
forever
In time, it (can/will) only
get better
Believe me, this is gonna
make you stronger, stronger
As
is common when I write the longer blog posts, I’m not online as I write this,
and so I can’t remember the entire song’s lyrics (repetitive as they are), but
here is an excerpt from the second verse:
Try and do the best you can
Hold on (for as long as you
can/and let Him hold your hand)
Go on, fall into the arms of
Jesus [**the only reference to Him by name in the entire song]
whoa oh oh
****** (I can’t remember
this line)
Even if you cannot feel Him
I promise you that He still
cares
(chorus)
All right. So what’s wrong with
that? Let me count the ways: 1) emphasis on what you do, not what God has done
for you or will do through you, 2) unBiblical promise that pain will go away
(the song does not imply it will end in heaven), 3) unBiblical view of
sanctification, 4) distant view of Christ as someone on the sidelines cheering
you on.
And the part that bothers me the
most is the most subtle: “He knows that this is gonna make you stronger.” The He knows part galls me. Why? Because it
says that whatever you’re going through is going to make you a better person
somehow, and the only role Jesus has in the whole situation is to know that that’s the case. He apparently
DOES nothing, just watches you
suffer. At most, the song implies that Jesus tells you that it’s going to get
better. But He doesn’t actually help you. The lyrics frame Christ as either
unconcerned, sadistic, or impotent. Combine this with the end of the last line
of the second verse: when I first heard the song, it sounded as if it would naturally
end in, ‘Even if you cannot feel Him, I
promise you that He’s still there.’ But according to this song, Jesus isn’t
even present with you in your afflictions. He “cares,” but “Stronger’s” Jesus
doesn’t ever show it. He’s like the estranged grandparent who lives in the next
town over and sends $20 and a generic Hallmark card on birthdays but never
visits or calls. I don’t want a God who “cares.” Personally, what has always
made most sense to me is to have a God who “knows.” Because since He is omniscient,
that means He knows all about my problems, and He knows the best way to answer
my prayers. I can trust such a God. But a God whose main emphasis is on emotion
divorced from rationality is a scary thought. What good does it do if God, or
anyone, “cares” but doesn’t help you? The problem I have with this is that
emotions, in the present culture, are viewed as chemical sensations and not as
goal-motivators. When I say that God cares, it means that He’s actively being
intimately involved in your personal struggles and is guiding you through them
for His glory and your good, as the Bible says. When the Culture says “God (or
anyone) cares,” it means that He feels bad for you – but that’s the
extent of it. In the contemporary view of emotion, God caring about you doesn’t
mean anything! It does nothing for you! So how, then, can this possibly
be encouraging to someone? I affirm that it can’t. And so the song,
though it seems aimed at being encouraging on its face, really plants seeds of
discouragement in the listener. Because what happens after a person has been
struggling for 30 years, wondering every day when their affliction will end,
and all the time people are telling them “hey, God cares.” They’ll despise the
gesture. It’s as meaningless as saying “Jesus loves you” because people don’t know what love IS. We need to explain
these things, we can’t just throw them out. And sadly, the context of how the
words show up in this song confirms that the “encouragement” is empty.
Do I have a Bible verse to
justify this with, so I’m not just throwing out my opinion? You bet. And this
is what I challenge the people who say “God cares” frivolously with:
“Suppose a brother or a
sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in
peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs,
what good is it?”
James 2:15-16
